The Royal Opera is a company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Along with the English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Company, it was known by that title until 1968. It brought a long annual season and consistent management to a house that had previously hosted short seasons under a series of impresarios. Since its inception, it has shared the Royal Opera House with the dance company now known as The Royal Ballet.

What do the spirited and robust scores of Italian opera and the infinite joys of the country’s food have in common? Chef Rick Stein heads to Italy to find out. In this colourful special, top chef Rick Stein takes a lighthearted look at the role that food played in the creation of Italian opera and shows how music and food are intrinsically linked in Italy. He draws parallels between cooking and composing, noting how both involve the skilful combination of ingredients and how they share the common purpose of bringing pleasure to many and lifting the human spirit. Rick also explains why he thinks the music of three great Italian composers – Verdi, Puccini and Rossini – is connected to the food of the regions where they lived and worked. All were passionate about the delights of the dining table. Puccini loved the simple dishes from his native Tuscany, Verdi had his own farm, and many extravagant dishes are named after notorious gourmand Rossini.

he band loves to play with sounds, mixing the bossa nova’s greatest waves (Jobim, Well, Mendes etc.) with strong and highly technical jazzistic sounds with clear references to many world known jazz and funk talents ( Jarreau, EWF, Pat Metheny etc.).

Just a generation ago, posterity hadn't quite made up its mind about Franco Corelli. Corelli was an operatic oddity, a self-trained singer with movie star looks who largely learned his craft from listening to old records of his predecessors. Corelli made up for what he may have lacked in conventionally trained, "beautiful" tone with an approach that emphasized power and electric energy over all, and gradually rose through the ranks of tenors to become a major star of Italian opera. This EMI collection, The Very Best of Franco Corelli, concentrates its focus on recordings Corelli made in the 1960s during the height of his popularity. As these selections are "bleeding chunks" drawn from recordings of complete operas such as Pagliacci, Rigoletto, Tosca, and others, this is kind of an odd sampling of Corelli.

The Best of The Classics Vol. 4 (Disc IV) is a classical compilation CD released by the Madacy label of Canada. While the disc and packaging lacks a date of release, it seems to be of 1990's vintage. The CD also lacks artist and production credits, which means it could be a series of artists or one artist performing everything. Who is responsible for these tracks will remain unknown. Take a chance.

The Best of Nat King Cole is part of EMI-Capitol Special Markets' Ten Best Series, where they selected ten hits from a popular artist on their roster. For the budget-minded, it's a nice collection of Nat King Cole's best-known hits, like "Unforgettable," "Ramblin' Rose," "Mona Lisa," "Walkin' My Baby Back Home" and "(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons." It certainly won't please either jazz purists or Cole collectors, but the budget-conscious looking for an affordable (albeit skimpy) sampler of well-known Cole should turn here.

Released in 1989, this anthology is a generous cross-section of tracks from Benson's CTI period, where he consolidated his jazz/soul guitar credentials just before striking gold with Warner Bros. All of the albums except Benson & Farrell are touched upon with one or two tracks, and CBS is enterprising enough to reach a bit further for "I Remember Wes" (from the anthology CTI Masters Of The Guitar) - an octave-laden theme that soon enough turns into pure Benson - and a gentle solo outtake from Bad Benson, "From Now On." The only "unrepresentative" track per se is the vocal on "Summertime," in the sense that there were hardly any vocal tracks to pick from in the CTI catalogue.